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AMERICA FREE— OR AMERICA SLAVE. 



AN ADDRESS 
ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 



DELIVERED BY 



-'*fe 



1 



JOHN JAY, esq.,.,;;^.^^^ 

AT BEDFORD, WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YdlRKT 

OCTOBER St/i, 1856. 



"Let it ever be remembered that the rights for which we have contended are the rights of human 

Stlature." — Address of the first Congress. 



Fellow-Citizens of "Westchester. 

Whatever local incentives may be 
found in other parts of our country, arising 
from historic association, or the memory of tlie 
departed, to keep alive a spirit of patriotism 
and a love of freedom, no spot in America has 
more of such associations than this, our native 
county of Westchester. During the first year 
of our Revolutionary struggle — the memnrable 
year of the Declaration of Independence !— 
Seventy-Six — the active operations of the war 
were confined to this region, and the two hos- 
tile armies were constantly on the alert under 
their respective commanders-in-chief. The 
British, with a numerous army, and a powerful 
marine, in possession of New York — Washing- 
ton, with an inferior and badly supplied army, 
endeavoring to keep them in check — and " the 
battle of White Plains, on the 28th of Octo- 
ber," says the historian, '' will long be remem- 
bered, as well as the dismal prospects of that 
year, when the patriot fathers of America had 
still the courage to declare their own indepen- 
dence, and to assert the rights of nature and of 
nations." 

Westchester was subsequently known— as 
those of you remember, who have read " The 
Spy," of Fennimore Cooper, himself a West- 
chester man— as " the Neutral Ground ; " and 
its citizens were exposed to the marauding 
bands of " Cowboys " and of " Skinners'" — their 
homes plundered, their fields laid waste, their 
enclosures burnt, their families outraged and 
insulted by brutal deeds, such as are to-day 
announced to us by telegraph as being re- 
enacted on the plains of Kansas ; but, in the 
patriotism of the farmers of Westchester, there 
was no neutrality. It breathed in the state 



papers of the First Congress, which compelled 
the admiration of the British Senate — it fought 
and bled on the battle-field of White Plains, 
and the other battle-fields of America — and it 
exhibited its incorruptibility and its "back- 
bone " in the three captors of Major Andr6, 
whose virtue — proof against all temptations — 
saved the country from the treachery of Ar- 
nold, when that traitor's plot for the betrayal 
of our liberties was on the verge of comple- 
tion. 

The integrity of Paulding, Williams, and 
Van Wart — whose descendants are yet 
among us — is a matter of history, familiar to 
every school-boy from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, and remembered with pride by every 
American, wherever the story is recalled, — 
whether he visit the familiar spots, or chances 
upon a volume in which it is alluded to, or 
treads the aisles of Westminster Abbey, where 
the remains of Andr6 repose, and a sculptured 
monument to his memory reminds the Ameri- 
can traveller, that, in the darkest period of the 
Eevolution, Mi country was sated from trea- 
chery and ruin by the incorruptibility of West- 
chester farmers. 

You are not unmindful of that memorable 
event, or of the other Revolutionary associa- 
tions tliat cluster about the Hudson on our 
west. Long Island Sound upon our south, the 
Harlem River, the Bronx, the Croton, and the 
hills and valleys and streams that add so much 
of beauty to Westchester. They are memories 
that cannot and ought not to be forgotten. 
Year by year our National Anniversary revives 
them iuall their greenness; and at all times they 
may be invoked to quicken our love of liberty 
and the common law, if^we cherish the princi- 



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K 



2 



pies of the founders of onr Republic — or to i 
reproach us if we are unfaithful guardiaus of 
that heritage of freedom which they bequeatlied 
to us, that we might transmit it, unimpaired, 
to our children. 

This guardianship of American principles — I j 
say A7nerican principles, because, altliough eter- 
nal in their origin and their character, they are 
American in their national development, Ame- 
rican as contra-distinguished from European 
theories and modes of government — this guar- 
dianship of American principles devolves upon 
us at every election of our rulers, legisla- 
tive or executive ; but never was the respon- 
sibility deeper or more solemn than at this 
moment, when a sectional and aristocratic oli- 
garchy, trampling upon faith, and encroaching 
on our rights, aspires to rule tlie American 
people, and when the Federal Government, 
converted into a military depotism, is engaged; 
in the language of its master spirit, in "• crush- 
ing out" Freedom from our youngest terri- 
tory. 

I have not hesitated to recall to ynu the 
memories of the past, familiar as tliey are to 
all of us ; for I believe we are entering upon a 
contest involving the same great principles as 
those for which our fathers fought for seven 
long years. "Let it ever be remembered," 
was their language, " that the rights for which 
we have contended are the rights of human 
nature ;" and changeable as we are said to be 
— immersed in active pursuits as we undoubt- 
edly are — I believe there are comparatively 
few among our countrymen — not one, I trust, 
among those whom I address — who do not 
cherish a love for the land of their birth — who 
do not remember, with emotion, its Revolu- 
tionary history — who do not contemplate with 
pride its progress in all that contributes to a 
nation's greatness, or who do not sometimes 
recall and dwell upon the glorious mission of 
the Republic among the nations of the earth, 
as foreshadowed by her founders. I trust there 
are, comparatively, but few, in our free States, 
at least, who do not hope and pray that while 
in the Old "World we may witness, in a single 
generation, the rise and fall of dynasties and of 
empires, this Federal Union may stand till the 
rights of human nature, proclaimed in our 
" Declaration of Independence," are practically 
acknowledged throughout our own borders, 
and throughout the world. 

At this time, it will hardly be contended by 
any one, that the Federal Government, whether 
we look to the scenes recently enacted in the 
Capitol, or to the outrages now being perpe- 
trated in Kansas, is advancing in that course 
of wisdom and equal justice, in which its first 
movements were directed, and in which its 
founders trusted it would for ever continue. 
Some will attribute this retrograde course to 
a general corruption of the American people. 






I am unwilling so to regard it. The address 
of the First Congress to the people of Great 
Britain, drafted by a citizen of Westchester, 
commenced with words so signally appro- 
priate to the present time, that they sound 
like a voice from the dead — the vi)ice of the 
Fathers to their Sons. 

"When a nation, led to greatness by tlie hand of 
liberty, and possessed of all the glory that heroism, 
munificence, and humanity can bestow, descends to 
the ungrateful task of forging chains for her friends 
and children, and instead of giving support to freedom, 
turns advocate for slavery and oppression, there is 
reason to believe that she has ceased to be virtuous. 
or has been extremely negligent in the appointment of 
her rulers." 

Let us not believe, despite of all tlie appa- 
rent evidence to the contrary, in the present 
cliaracter and conduct of our Fedenil Govern- 
ment, tliat the virtue which raised us from 
feeble colonies to a mighty Republic, clasping 
a continent in its embrace, lias ceased out of 
the land. Let ns accept the alternative expla- 
nation of the crimes and inconsistencies that 
are at this moment startling the world, tliat 
"we have been extremely negligent in the ap- 
pointment of our rulers." Dwelling peacefully 
in free homes — enjoying quietly the reward of 
labor — acting generously towards our neigh- 
bors of the South, resting trustfully on ancient 
compacts, our people have slumbered in a false 
security. But there is, at last, an uprising 
throughout the land, thatsliows that the slum- 
ber is broken, and they find their security was 
a dream. 

And now that another Presidential election 
approaches, compelling the nation to look its 
destiny in the face — an election that involves 
a principle, and an issue, more momentous than 
any wiiich have been submitted to this people 
since we became a nation — an election that is 
to pronounce the solemn judgment of the people 
on the conduct of the Pierce administration — 
an election that is to shape, for weal or woe, 
for Freedom, with its boundless blessings, or 
slavery with its untold curses, the territories 
of the great West, and the mighty future of 
this continent, possibly to the end of time; — 
we are so searcliingly to consider, and so ad- 
visedly to act, that the picture drawn by the 
First Congress of the Motiier Country shall no 
longer be applicable to ourselves; "that, led 
to greatness by the hand of liberty, and pos- 
sessed of all tlie glory that heroism, munifi- 
cence, and humanity can bestow," our country 
shall no longer " descend to the task of forg- 
ing chains for her friends and children;" that 
from giving support to freedom she shall no 
longer turn advocate for slavery and oppres- 
sion. We are so to act, and so to vote, that 
neither the people of Kansas, and the farther 
West, nor the future historian, may have occa- 
sion to declare, that we had either ceased t& 






^ ;. be virtuous, or had been extremely negligent I 

j» in the appointment of onr rnlers. ' 

^" But gentlemen, admissible as the plea of 

Nsinegligence may be for the past, it will not 

avail you for the future. If you endorse the 

^conduct of the Pierce administration, as the 

JDemocratic party at Cincinnati have endorsed 

: ,jit — or if, by the adoption of any side issue, 

-^you permit that policy to continue, then the 

crime of tlie administration will become your 

own, and its future consequences v.-ill rest 

upon your heads. 

From this responsibility no citizen can 
exempt himself. By the Cimsiitution of our 
countr\', every voter is one of its sovereigns — 
and is charged with the sacred duty of exercising 
his right of suffrage. A single' vote, a ftw 
years since, elected a governor of Massachu- 
setts. Frequently, a single vote in Congress 
has had an important bearing upon the poh- 
tics of the country; and, at a moment like 
this, when the destiny of our countrv — the 
character of the Great West— our domestic 
policy among ourselves — our foreign policy 
towards other nations, all depend upon the 
coming election, it is the duty of every man, 
whatever his party ties, whatever his personal 
preferences, to examine for himself carefully, 
truthfully, and impartially, tlie real issues in- 
volved in the contest— the conduct of the 
Pierce administration — the platform of the 
rival parties, and the claims to confidence of 
the rival candidates. 

I propose, now, not to institute the tho- 
rough searching examination which I ask you 
to make — for, to do tliis, time would fail us — 
but I propose to direct your attention to the 
great facts of the case, and then to glance at 
the platforms and the candidates that are of- 
fered for your support; and while I confess 
an interest in this great subject, that dates 
from my boyhood, and has strengthened with 
my strength, [ will endeavor, as far as possi- 
ble, to let my remarks be calm, careful, truth- 
ful and impartial. 



PRESENT ASPECT OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 

The Slavery Question, as now presented to 
us by the administration of Mr. Pierce, and 
the platform of Mr. Buchanan, however it 
may hitherto have been regarded, is certainly 
not, at this moment, a remote theoretical ab- 
straction, but a stern present practical reality. 

Great as are tiie wrongs which slaverv 
inflicts upon the blacks, it is not these wrong's 
that have aroused the country. Fearful as 
may be the consequence both to the soil and 
the people of the South, of that domestic 
system, whicli Jefferson declares to be an 
"unremitting despotism on the one part," and 
"degrading submission on the other," it is not 
with the evils of slavery in the States^ that jthe 



nation has now to do. What the Ptcpublican 
party propose, is not interference with the 
constitutional riglits (;f the slave-holders, but 
resistance to their aggression upon our rights, 
and such a reform in the administration of 
the Federal governfueut, that whatever policy 
the slave-masters may think proper to pursue 
on their own plantations, and witliin their own 
State limits, they shall no longer monopolize 
the control of the nation — no longer use the 
Federal government to extend and support 
their sectional interests — no h)nger interfere 
as they are now interfering with the rights of 
free laborer;?, and with the peace, {irosperity 
and fair fame of the Republic. 

THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 

It is admitted by all— for the fact ia too 
plain for denial, that the quiet pervading the 
country when Mr. Pierce was inaugurated, 
and wliich he called Heaven to witness should 
not be disturbed by him, was interrupted, not by 
any efforts of the Abolitionists, but by the repeal 
of the Missouri Compnmiise. ThatVeiieal was 
THE HEAD AND FRONT of all the criuies against 
Kansas and against freedom, which have'since 
aroused the people of the Free States to such 
intense and absorbing indignation; and as 
such, you will allow me, I trust, to recall to 
you the prominent features of that compact, 
now violated and broken. 

In 1802, the Louisiana Territorv, embracing 
an area of 899,579 square miles— larger than 
a.11 the then existing States, including the 
State of Missouri and the Territories of' Kan- 
sas and Nebraska, was purchased from France. 
In 1820, Missouri having ai)plied for admis- 
sion as a State, with a Constitution sanction- 
ing slavei-y, and having been refused admission 
by the House of Representatives, on that 
account, was admitted on the 20th of March 
of that year, by tlie adoption of the Missouri 
Compromise. That Compromise was pro- 
posed by tlje Slave States to the Free States. 
They said to the Free States, Admit Missouri 
with slavery, and we will agree that slavery 
shall never go into the remainder of the Ter- 
ritory North of 36° 30'. The Free State 
Representatives yielded, and the compact was 
embodied in the Act preparatory to admitting 
Missouri, in these won's: 

^'Sec. 8. Be it further enacted, that in all that Ter- 
ritory ceded by France to the United States, under the 
name of Louisiana, which lies North of 36° 30' of 
North latitude, not included within the limits of the 
State contemplated by this Act, Slavery and invol- 
untary servitude, otherwise than as the punishment 
of crime, shall be, and is hereby forevkk pkohibithd." 

It has been said that this was simply an 
agreement made by one Congress, wdiich any 
subsequent Congress had the right to repeal. 
Such was not the view taken of it by the 



Southern statesmen, who urged its adoption 
on the North. They declared it to be, in 
the language of Mr. Louis McLane, of Dela- 
ware, "A compact which shall be binding 
upon all parties and all subsequent Legisla- 
tures — which cannot be changed, and will not 
fluctuate with the diversity of feeling and of 
sentiment to which this empire in its march 
must be destined." 

The character of the compromise as an 
honorable and irrepealable cotnpact, as bind- 
ing upon the sons as upon the fatliers, was 
recognized by the Southern press. 

"It is true," said ''Niks' Register," pub- 
lished at Baltimore, "it is true the compro- 
mise is supported only by the letter of the 
law, repealable by the authority which enacted 
it; but the circumstances of the case give this 
law a moral force equal to that of a positive 
provision of the Constitution; and we do not 
hazard anytliing in saying that the Constitu- 
tion exists in its ohservance.''^ 

You probably know that it has been said 
by the facile demagogues of the day, that tlie 
compromise was unconstitutional, that Con- 
gress had no power to prohibit slavery in the 
Territories, and that every man who contends 
for such a power, is a traitor to the country. 

I shall not respond at length to this arrogant 
assumption. It has been most ably disposed 
of by our own Senator Sewaed, foremost 
among the statesmen of our land; by Chase, 
whose clear tones aroused the country to its 
danger, and who has animated with his brave 
spirit the great State over which he presides; 
and by Charles Sumner, at whose name your 
pulses quicken, and around whose couch cluster 
the sympathies of the Christian world, hstening 
to a silence more eloquent than speech. Whe- 
ther he shall rise from that couch, which may 
God soon grant, to resume the vacant chair 
that is now teaching the Senate and the na- 
tion so profound a lesson, or whether he shall 
descend to the grave in his early manhood, he 
will live on the page of history, and in the 
hearts of his countrymen — among those who, 
in the language of Burke, are the guide-posts 
and land-marks of a State. 

I need not repeat the elaborate exposures by 
these Statesmen of the fallacy of "popular 
sovereignty" in the Territories, as opposed to 
Congressio'nal legislation, on the subject of 
slavery ; but let me remind you that the very 
first Congress under the Constitution, in the 
year 1789, recognized and affirmed this doc- 
trine, embodied by Jefferson in the great 
western ordinance of 1787, which forever ex- 
cluded slavery from the Territory that now 
embraces Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Remem- 
ber that this doctrine was then sanctioned and 
approved by Washington ; that in 1800 it was 
approved by John Adams, in the Territoral 
Act for Indiana ; in 1805, and again in 1804 by 



Thomas Jefferson, in the act for Michigan and 
IlHnois. In 1884 by Andrew Jackson, with 
reference to Wisconsin and Iowa. In 1836 and 
1838 by Martin Van Buren, in reference to the 
same Territories. In 1848 by James K. Polk, 
as regards the whole of Oregon, and in March, 
1853, by Millard Filltnore, in reference to the 
Territory of Washington. In all of these acta 
slavery was expressly prohibited by Con- 
gress. 

The right of Congress to prohibit slavery in 
the Territories is as well settled as any doctrine 
can be by the contemporaneous authority of 
the framers of the Constitution ; by its unques- 
tioned and practical recognition by successive 
Congresses for nearly 70 years, and by the 
uniform unbroken acquiescence of tlie Ameri- 
can people. Whose are the dicta that are to 
outweigh the recorded judgment and will of 
the nation, of its Legislatures and its Presidents, 
from Wasliington to Fillmore 1 

The Missouri Compromise, when adopted, 
was hailed by the South as "a great triumph," 
in the language of Mr. Pinckney, of South Caro- 
lina, and at the North was accepted as a de- 
feat, and most of the Free State men who 
voted for it, were repudiated by their consti- 
tuents and retired to private life. The com- 
pact, however, was regarded as an eternal land- 
mark, never to be removed, and none dreamed 
of questioning, in regard to its observance, the 
good faith of the Southern people. 

If ever men were bound in honor to abide 
by a bargain, the people of the Slave States 
were bound religiously by that compact. We 
had yielded to them an organized State, ad- 
ding on the instant to their political strength ; 
taking in return only a future and distant 
right to an unsettled Indian Territory, that 
was likely to remain unsettled for, at least, 
another generation. 

Years rolled on ; the generation of that day 
pass from the stage ; their successors repeated- 
ly approve the principle of the compromise 
made in the division of the Louisiana Terri- 
tory. They establish the line of 36° 30' as 
the limit to slavery in New Mexico. They 
even propose to us to make a similar bargain 
in reference to the Territory ceded by Mexico, 
and to extend the line to the Pacific, and hav- 
ing thus estopped themselves from ever ques- 
tioning its constitutionality, or binding force,- 
these very men, when the time comes for us 
to occupy our share of the Louisiana Territory, 
consecrated to freedom, repudiate the bargain; 
violate their compact, break their faith, and 
open wide the doors to slavery. 

For that deed of infamy, history has no pre- 
cedent, and language no fitting name. 

Of the probability of accoraplishiug so im- 
mense a fraud, the chief perpetrators themselves 
entertained, at one time, the greatest doubts. 
The very author of the bill declared the hand 



" ratliless" that should attempt to disturb tlie 
Missouri Compromise. Even Atchison, the 
Senator from Mi-;souri, and tlie arch leader in 
the scheme of perfidy, declared but the session 
before, on the floor of the Senate, that much 
as he regretted the ordinance of 1787 and the 
Missouri Compromise, "they are both irremedi- 
able. There is no reinedy for them. We 
must submit to them. I am prepared to do it. 
It is evident that the Missouri Compromise 
cannot be repealed. * * I have no hope 
that tlie restriction will ever be repealed." 

The attempt, however, was resolved to be 
made, and the instrument of the slave power, 
selected for the purpose, was Sthphex Arnold 
Douglas, a Senator from Illinois, and it was 
then pretended that the Freemen of the North 
volunteered by this Free State Senator, to 
surrender their rights to tliis mighty Territory, 
and that the South were guiltless of violating 
their compact in accepting such voluntary 
surrender. 

As reasonable would it have been for the 
British spy to have claimed tliat the Ameri- 
can Colonist had commissioned Benedict Ar- 
nold to surrender West Point to Hessian troops, 
as for the slave masters to pretend that the 
freemen of the North had commissioned Ar- 
nold Douglas, or any other Arnolds, either 
in the Senate or the House, to surrender to 
slave labor and slave policy that noble Terri- 
tory, the " West Point" of our Northern and 
Eastern States, and yet destined to stand, as 
I firmly believe, in despite of treachery, and 
of traitors, the strong hold and citadel of 
American freedom. 

The idle pretence was disposed almost as 
soon as it was uttered. The Fi-ee States at 
first utterly incredulous, unable to believe in 
the possibility of such bad faith on the part of 
their Southern brethren, were soon convinced 
that the treachery was real, and there arose 
from every Free State, from cities, towns and 
villages, from mass meetings and the public 
press, from the stump and from the pulpit, one 
indignant shout of reprobation, and of warn- 
ing. But the slave power, conscious of its 
waning political and essential strength, and 
dreading the sight of Free States prosperous 
and happy on the plains of Kansas, hazarded 
all upon this die. The hesitating confederates 
of Arnold Douglas, startled by the bursts of 
thunder that reverberated through the North- 
ren skies, were yet in the hands of masters 
accustomed to wield the lash and enforce 
obedience. Backed by a pliant executive, 
whose inaugural promises were &< chaff scat- 
tered by the wind, the rules of tlie House of 
Kepresentatives were violated; tlie proper 
business of the nation was suspended, and at 
midnight, on the 30th of May, 1854, the deed 
was done, and the fact recorded on the page 
of History, never to be forgotten, never to be 



effaced, that while there may be faith among 
savages, and honor among thieves, the slave 
masters of America, their tools, aiders, and 
abettors, know not honor and keep not faith. 

That day changed the relation in which 
the freemen of the North and the slave- 
holders of the South had before stood to each 
other. For faith, the great ligament of society, 
had been broken and confidence was at an 
end. Freedom had before been yielding to 
and confiding, ever more generous to the 
South than just to herself; ready to give and 
take, and ever giving more than she received, 
but never expecting to be swindled out of the 
whole. The settlement of disputes by com- 
promise had frequently been resorted to, and 
had been regarded with favor ; but now that 
a time-honored and solemn compact had been 
ruthlessly violated, and the too credulous North 
had been cheated out of her allotted portion, 
the sentiment of the Free States, applauded to 
the echo in public a-semblies, has been and will 
continue to be '* no more compromises uith 
slavery.'''' 

The repudiation of good faith by the slave 
power has been followed by the consequences 
that might in part have been expected by those 
who remembered the olden maxim, "false in 
one thing, false in all," or that other maxim 
which teaches us that "where law ends, tyran- 
ny begins." 

TREATMENT OF KANSAS. 

The treatment of Kansas from that day by 
the Pierce Administration, surpasses, in au- 
dacity and in crime, anything heretofore re- 
corded in the history of America, and were 
not the facts proven by the sworn testimony 
of a host of witnesses, and recorded by a 
Congressional Committee of the House of Re- 
presentatives, in a volume, swelled to nearly 
1,200 pages, they would hardly be credited. 
Austria and Russia will afford no grosser in- 
stances of fraud and despotism ; the Middle 
Ages may be ransacked in vain for more lawless 
outrages by a more insolent banditti. 

Let me briefly remind you of dates and facts. 
The doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty," or, as 
Gen. Cass calls it, "Squatter Sovereignty," 
was the "artful dodge" resorted to by the 
compMCt-breakers to justify the repeal ot the 
Missouri Compromise. This novel doctrine, 
which has been practically repudiated, as you 
have seen, by the government and the people 
of the Re])ublic, from the day when we be- 
came a nation, denies the right of Congress to 
exclude slavery from a territory, on the ground 
that the first "squatters" on the soil, have an 
inherent and sovereign right to shape their 
own institutions, without interference on the 
part of any other persons wliatsoever ; not even 
the Congress of the United States, under whose 
guardiansliip the Territories are placed bj- tlie 



Constitution, and wlio by that instrument are 
empowered to make all needful rules and regu- 
lations for their government. The Kansas- 
Nebraska act, as finally parsed, after several 
alterations in its phraseology, called forth by 
the pi-ogre-s of the plot, contained a clause 
declaring the object of the bill ro be "■ to leave 
the people thereof perfectly free to form and 
regulate their own domestic institutions in 
their own way, subject only to the Oonsti- 
tation." Southern senators, who repudiated 
'•squatter sovereignty," voted for this clause, 
declaring that the Constitution itself allowed 
slaveholders to carry their slaves into the ter- 
ritories, and hold them there independently of 
the will of the people of the territories; thus 
attempting to make slavery national, instead 
of sectional ; to make slavery the rule, and free- 
dom the exception, and ignoring the ancient 
principle of law, that slavery, being in viola- 
tion of natural right, can only exist by virtue 
of positive local statutes. 

But, apart from the sophisms and assump- 
tions of these slavery extensionists, the popu- 
lar sovereignty clause in the bill was a pledge 
given by Congress to the people, that the peo- 
ple, whether from the North or the South, 
who might seek homes in Kansas, should be 
left "perfectly free" to regulate their own in- 
stitutions in their own way. Gentlemen, the 
Federal Government, adding perjury to trea- 
chery, have violated also this pledge. 

The Kansas-Nebraska Bill was passed the 
30th May, 1854, and on tlie 29th November, 
1854, the young territory was to elect a dele- 
gate to represent it in Congress. The admin- 
istration were forewarned that attempts would 
be made by parties from Missouri to violate 
the purity of the franchise, and to defraud the 
people of a fair election. 

A year before, in the autumn of 1853, Mr. 
Senator Atchison had madeaspeech at a meet- 
ing in Western Mis-ouri, the proceedings of 
which were publicly reported, and one of the 
resolutions declared " that if the territory (Kan- 
sas) be opened to settlement, we pledge our- 
selves to co-operate to extend the in-ititutions 
of Missouri over the territory, at whatever cost 
of blooii and treasure'" — and similar resolu- 
tions had been passed by '"a blue lodge" in 
Misscmri, the proceedings of which are before 
me, piiblisiied on the 10th June, 1854, at ajiich 
time it may be Avell to remember, not a single 
emigrant tVom a New England Aid Society had 
entered Kausa-i. 

Did the a(!mini>tration, thus forewarned, 
take measures to protect tlie sacredness of the 
ballot-box, and to preserve intact tlie " popu- 
lar sovereignty" of Kansas? They took no 
such steps; and, when the election came, in- 
vaders from Missouri, vvitli arms and ammuni- 
tion, with bowie-knives, revolvers, and two 
field-pieces, in an organized body, with trains 



of wagons, horsemen, munition, tents, and pro- 
visions, as though marching upon a foreign 
foe, surrounded the polls, and, with drums 
beating and banners flying, they drove off 
many legal voters, and stulied the ballot-boxes 
with illegal votes. Of 2,871 votes cast, tlie 
Congressional Committee report that 1,142 
were fraudulent; and, on their evidence, Whit- 
field, wlio claimed to have been then appointed 
a delegate to Congress, was refused his seat by 
the House of Representatives. 

On the 30th March, 1855, the people of 
Kansas were to elect a Territorial Legislature. 
A similar invasion took place, without the 
slightest opposition from the Pierce adminis- 
tr.ation, and of 6,820 votes, 4,908 were found 
by the Congressional Committee to have been 
illegal ; leaving only 1,412 legal votes ; less than 
one third of the whole number. Such was the 
election of that counterfeit Legislature which 
re-enacted, in a body, a great part of the Mis- 
souri code, simply substituting the word "Ter- 
ritory" for "State," with enactments for the 
establishment, advancement, and support of 
slavery; so utterly unconstitutional and bar- 
barous, that even Southern senators could not 
forbear to pronounce them infamous. 

By this bloody code, any person assisting a 
slave to escape, in obedience to the golden rule, 
may be punished by death, or ten years' im- 
prisonment. Any person expressing the opin- 
ion that persons have no right to hold slaves 
in the territoi-y, or bringing into the territory 
any book, pamphlet, or newspaper that main- 
tains such an opinion, shall be deemed guilty 
of felony, punishable with two years im[)rison- 
ment at hard labor. 

To secure conviction under these acts, im- 
ct>nstitutional tests are introduced, and no per- 
son who is conscientiously opposed to holding 
slaves, or who does not admit the right to hold 
slaves in the territory, is alhjwed to sit as juror 
on the trial of any prosecution under the 
act. 

Novel test-oaths are prescribed for civil offi- 
cei-s and attorneys, compelling them to swear 
to support and sustain the Fugitive Slave Act, 
which the ablest jurists in the country reject, 
a!ul the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has ad- 
judged unconstitutional and void. For the 
punislmient of felons, it is provided that con- 
victs may be placed under the cliarge of other 
persons than the keepers of the prisons, with 
cliain and ball attached to their ankles, and so 
kept at hard labor — a convenient mode of 
enabling the pro-slavery gentry of Kansas to 
retain in slavery, side-by-side with tlieir ne- 
groes, the free-spoken emigrants from the Free 
States who, in defiance of the enactments of 
this sliam Legislature, shall dare to utter the 
sentiments of Washington and Jefferson, or 
carry with them to their new homes in the 
wilderness, the writings of American statesmen, 



from tlie times of TTainilton and ITenry to 
those of Webster and Clay. 

Those laws, gentlemen, uns:iiictioned by 
reason, and baseless in anthority, the Free- 
State men of Kansas, with a si)irit wortliy of 
our Revolutionary fathers, steadfastly refused 
to recognize or obey, altliough backed by Mr. 
Pierce and the army, and by all the ruffians in 
Missouri. 

At length the people of Kan«as, awakened 
from tlie delusion that they might expect jus- 
tice or protection from the Fedc-ral Govern- 
ment, and forced to recognize the fact that the 
frauds and outrages of wiiich they were the 
victims were complacently regarded — if, in- 
deed, they were not secretly instigated — by 
the Cabinet at Washington, assembled in their 
sovereignty, at Topeka, and framed a State 
Constitution. 

Tliat Constitution your House of Represen- 
tatives — 'the popular branch of Congress, rep- 
resenting immediately the people of the United 
States — recognized as embodying the will of 
the people of Kansas, legitinaately and consti- 
tutionally expressed. Under that Constitution 
a Stare Legislature was elected ; and when that 
Legislature assembled, to consider the affiiirs 
of their unhappy Territory, their deliberations 
were interrupted by an armed force, by oriler 
of Mr. Pierce, acting as Commander-in-Chief 
of the army of the tjnited States. They were 
interrupted by Col. Sumner, at the head of a 
detachment of federal troops, and ordered to 
disperse. That single act, did it stand ahme, 
nnsarrounded as it is by a host of crimes, 
were enough of itself to arouse the country. 
There was a covp d''etat worthy of Cromwell 
or Louis JTapoleon. We need not go to Paris 
or Vienna to study the feats of a military 
despotism : Mr. Pierce sits in the White House, 
attended by his Secretary of War — Mr. Jeffer- 
son Davis, a Southern disunionist — the Consti- 
tution, descibed by a Southern statesman as 
"tliat blurred and tattered parchment," is 
trampled under their feet ; the imperial motto, 
which is also that of the plantation, Sic volo, 
sic jxJjeo (my will — that is law), superse<les tlie 
limitations of constitu ional power, and the 
President gives the order to his Secretary that 
a legitimate legislative assembly of the people 
of Kansas — ttiat i>eople for who.se popular 
sovereignty he had professed to be so solicit- 
ous — should be- dispersed, if necessary, at the 
point of the bayonet ! 

Is that tlie object, my fellow-countrymen, 
for winch we maintain a standing army, and 
place it at the control of the Executive ! Was 
it to establish this central and despotic oli- 
garchy, that treats the freemen of a Territory 
like slaves — deluding them with pledges but 
to weaken and betray, and subsiiiuting tlie 
bayonet for the lash! Was it, I ask you, to 
establish this central oligarchy that our fathers 



fouglit the battles of the Revolution, and or- 
dained the Constitution of these United States! 
Recall, I pray you, the memories that cluster 
arouncl our valley.s, and respond to the ques- 
tion, with your ballot, on the fourth of No- 
vember. 

The history of Kansas from that day to this 
has been a dreary record of outrage, crime, 
and murder. The Report of the Congressional 
committee gives a fearful picture of what oc- 
curred during the brief period of their stay, 
and of the bombarding and burning to the 
ground of houses — the property of private 
individuals — the destruction of printing-presses 
and materials; the sacking, pillaging, and rob- 
bery of houses, stores, trunks, even to the 
clothing of women and children. "All the 
provisions of the Constitution of the United 
States," they remark, "securing person and 
property, are utteidy disregarded. The offi- 
cers of the law instead of protecting the peo- 
ple, were, in some instances, engaged in these 
outrages, and in no instance did we learn that 
any man was arrested for any of these crimes. 
While such oftences were committed with im- 
punity, the laws were used for indicting men 
for holding elections preliminary to framing a 
constitution and applying for admission to the 
Union as the State of Kansas. Charges of 
high treason were made against prominent 
citizens upou grounds which seem to your 
committee idle and ridiculous; and, under 
these charges, they are now held in custody, 
and are refused the privilege of bail." 

Recently, a slight concession was made by the 
new governor. Gov. Geary, in admitting to bail 
those gentlemen who had been indicted for 
treason at the instigation of Judge Lecompte, 
who occupies the same relation to Mr. Pierce 
that Judge Jeffries did to James IL, and who 
delivered a charge on the law of treason every 
way worthy of his prototype ; but the "pacifi- 
cation of Kansas" by Gov. Geary, which some 
news[)apers would luTve you believe has re- 
moved all its evils and left no subject for com- 
plaint, amounts to naught. 

Bad laws are the worst of tyranny — and the 
bad laws of a bad legislature remain ; and 
Gov. Geary, backed by Mr. Pierce and the 
army, declares that he is there to compel the 
people to obey them. 

This were enough — but it is not all. Chief- 
Ju tice Lecompte is left, ready to charge pro- 
slavery juries, and to hang for treason or 
felon}" tlie Free-State leaders. The marshal 
and other officers — who liave been, as the 
Congiessional Committee advise you, the abet- 
tors of border-ruffianism, the instigators and 
perpetrators of lawless outrages — are all left, a 
standing insult to the people, as continuing to 
wield tiie sliam authority of a counterfeit leg- 
islature. The Missouri border is closed to the 
Free-State men for ingress or egres", and Kan- 



8 



sas, in a word, is a conquered territory. Tlie 
Federal Government, with the border-ruffians 
at its call, and the army at its back, have van- 
quished it3 people — have extinguished tlieir 
sovereigDty, dispersed their legislature, im- 
prisoned their leaders, and now grinds them 
in the dust with the iron hoof of a military 
despotism ! 

Tliis is the only pacification of Kansas which 
has been or will be made by the slave power 
that now governs the country. 

•'It is silly to suppose," says the "Squatter 
Sovereign'' — a paper supported by government 
advertising, and bearing the banner of " Bu- 
chanan and Breckinridge" — "it is silly to sup- 
pose for an instant that there can be peace in 
Kansas as long as one enemy of the South 
lives upon her soil, or one single specimen of 
an abolitionist treads in the sunlight of Kan- 
sas Territory." 

This is the Pacification of Governor Geary. 
Order reigns in Kansas, as once in Warsaw. 
They would make a solitude, and call it 
peace. 

Such, gentlemen, is the Kansas question as 
it is now presented for your solution. That 
brave and long-suffering people, whose devo- 
tion to the Federal Union has continued un- 
shaken, even when the bayonets of its soldiery 
dispersed their legislature or carried away 
captive their chosen leaders, await your de- 
cision. They have appealed from Franklin 
Pierce to the American people. They appeal 
from the Executive servant whose brii f autho- 
rity is expiring, to you his master . They 
appeal to you, the permanent sovereigns of 
this land ; and if tlie American people, or a 
majority of them, shall approve and confirm 
the conduct of the present Administration in 
crushing out their liberties, and forcing upon 
them, by fraud and violence, the curse of 
slavery, then I believe they will appeal to 
their own strength and to the God of right, to 
resist the bloody enactments of their mock 
legislature, though backed by a perjured Ex- 
ecutive and willing officers — by convenient 
judges and packed juries, and all the soleiim 
mockery of pro-slavery law. I believe they 
will defend their rights and their homes as 
their fathers before tliem, and fight as their 
fathers fouglit for the ])rinciples of the Decla- 
ration of Independence and the everlasting 
rights of human nature. It is impossible that 
the sons of New-England and New-York, and 
of those Western States that have grown to 
greatness under the protecting shade of the 
great Ordinance of freedom — men in whose 
veins flows the blood of the Pilgrims and the 
Huguenots that in other ages refused to bow 



to the tyrants of Europe, and in the last cen- 
tury, true to the principles of English liberty, 
defied the power of tlie British Em[)ire, and 
laid deep the foundations of a free republic. 
It is impossible that the descendants of such 
men, in the nineteenth century and in the 
heart of our continent, should tamely submit 
to be defrauded of their heritage, and yield 
themselves meekly to the yoke of slavery-. 

THE SLAVE POWER. 

Let us see, gentlemen, what this slave power 
is, which, trampling upon compacts, and defy- 
ing the Constitution, controls the federal go- 
vernment, and employs its army and its trea- 
sury to force slavery upon an unwilling 
people. 

It has long been believed by those who have 
carefully scrutinized the institutions and policy 
of the slave-holding States, that but a small 
proportion of their citizens were holders of 
slaves; but until the publication of the last 
census of 1850, the statistics were wanting to 
confirm this belief. That census disclosed the 
astounding fact that the slaveholders of the 
South, men, women, and children, including 
the hirers of slaves, all told, numbered only 
347,820 — about half the number of persons 
residing in the city of New York and its im- 
mediate vicinity ; that of these 68,820 own but 
a single slave, and 105,683 less tiian five slaves 
each. So that, deducting those who have 
only a few home-servants for convenience, and 
are not specially interested in the perpetuation 
and extension of the system, there remain but 
about 200,000 slaveholders composing that 
slave power which rules as with a rod of iron 
not only the 6,000,000 of non-slaveholders at 
the South, but the 20,000,000 of the whole 
nation. 

It has been said with truth that the privi- 
leged aristocracy of England is far less power- 
ful, and infinitely less arrogant, than this aris- 
tocratic oligarchy of slaveholders. 

The census further discloses the relative 
proportion between the slaveholders and non- 
slaveholders in each State, and shows us that 
there is not one slaveholding State in the 
Union where the slaveholders constitute one- 
tenth of the white population, and in some of 
them not a thirtieth part. 

The following table, taken from the census, 
and which I find ready to my hand in an able 
speech of the Hon. Mr.'TAPPAN, of New Ham])- 
sliire — but to which I have added the i)ropor- 
tion of the white population to the slaveholders 
in eacli State, is enough to surprise the coun- 
trv : 



9 



Proportion of 
SUveholdore Whits White Popu- 

States. in each. Population. lation to 

Slavfhold.rs. 

Alabama .... 29,295 427,513 1M9 

Arkansas .... 5,999 162,189 27-38 

District of Columbia . 1,477 37,941 25-68 

Delaware .... 809 71,169 87-97 

Florida 3,520 47.203 13-40 

Georgia 38,456 521,592 13-56 

Kentucky .... 38,385 761,413 19-70 

Louisiana .... 20,670 255,491 12-34 

Maryland .... 16,040 417,943 25-43 

Mississippi .... 23,116 394,718 17-07 

Missouri 19.189 692.006 35-05 

North Carolina . . 28,303 553.028 19-50 

South Carolina . . 25,596 274,563 10-72 

Tennessee .... 23.864 756,836 30-29 

Texas 7,747 154,634 19-08 

Virginia 55,063 894,800 16-30 

Total .... 347,525 6,222,318 

The value of the slaves held by this handful 
of men, from whose lawless ambition come all 
the disturbances to our peace, is estimated by 
Mr. Shater, of Alabama, at two thousand mil- 
lions of dollars — a large advance on Mr, Clay's 
estimate, a few years ago, of twelve hundred 
millions ; but, whether the amount be correctly 
estimated or not, it constitutes an immense capi- 
tal, hardly to be realized and comprehended 
without some mental effort; a capital which, 
firmly united and skillfully wielded, is now 
waging so fierce a war with the free labor of 
the Northern States, 

Discarding for the present all those conside- 
rations of right and justice which instinctively 
occur to every right-minded person when 
slavery is mentioned — foregoing, on this occa- 
sion, all expression of sympathy for the mil- 
lions of beating hearts that in the arithmetic 
of slavery count but as units under the sign 
of dollars— dispensing with aught that might 
seem to savor of philanthropy, or, as some 
style it, fanaticism, and leaving the entire 
question of slavery in the States to the people 
of those States, who, in the language of Mr, 
Faulkner, of Virginia, "have a right to demand 
jts extermination," let me direct your attention 
to the bearing of the question upon yourselves^ 
to the direct, permanent, practical, and pecu- 
niary interest which you and your children 
liave in the rescue of Kansas from the grasp 
of slavery. 

I need not remind you that slave labor and 
free labor are antagonistic. ;They cannot 
flourish, they hardly co-exist together. Tliis 
fact was declared in tlie strongest terms by the 
ablest statesman of Virginia in the Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1830. 

The Hon. C, J, Faulkner said, " Slavery is 
an institution which presses heavily against 
the best interests of the State. It Danishes free 
white laior, it exterminates the mechanic, the 
artisan, the manufacturer ; it deprives them of 
occu])ation, it deprives them of bread ; it con- 
verts the energy of a community into indo- 



lence, its power into imbecility, its efficiency 
into weakness. Sir, being thus injurious, liave 
we not a right to demand its extermination? 
Shall society suff"er tliat the slaveholder may 
continue to gather his crop of human flesh ? 
Must the country languish, droop, and die that 
the slaveholder may flourish?" Shall all inte- 
rests be subservient to one, all right subordi- 
nate to those of the slaveholder ? Has not the 
mechanic, have not the middle classes their 
rights — rights incompatille with the interests 
of slavery ? 

The Hon. T. J. Randolph : " Slavery has 
the effect of lessening the free jjopuladoii of a 
country. * * * Those who remain, relying 
upon the support of casual employment, often 
become more degraded in their condition than 
the slaves themselves.'''' 

The Hon. James Maeshall said : " Where- 
fore, then, object to slavery ? Because it is 
ruinous to the ichites, retards improvement, 
roots out an industrious population, banishes 
the yeomanry of the country, deprives the 
spinner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, 
the carpenter of employment and support. 
The evil admits of no remedy ; it is increasing, 
and will increase, until the whole country will 
be inundated by one black wave,' with a few 
wliite faces here and there floating on the sur- 
face. The master has no capital but what is 
invested in human flesh ; the father, instead 
of being richer for his sons, is at a loss to pro- 
vide for them. There is no diversity of occu- 
pation, no incentive to enterprise. Laior of 
every species is disreputaile, hecause performed 
by slaves. Our towns are stationary, our 
villages everywhere declining, and the general 
aspect of the country marks the course of a 
wasteful, idle, reckless population, who have 
no interest in the soil, and care not how much 
it is impoverished." 

We may assume, therefore, that if Kansas 
is given up to Slavery, it will be thereby closed 
to the better class of free-laborers not only of 
our own country, but of Europe. The great body 
of emigration westward-bound from our At- 
lantic States, never seeks, and never will seek 
slave soil where not labor but the laborers 
themselves are bought and sold, and where 
labor is stripped of the dignity that belongs 
to it, and is treated with contempt. 

Now look on the map, blackened by slavery, 
and you will see that Kansas is the key 
to the large territory lying to the west of 
it, tlie boundless regions of Utah and New- 
Mexico, extending Imndreds of miles till they 
meet the eastern boundary of California. Is 
it not clear, that if we lose Kansas we shall 
in all probability lose not only the Indian 
Territory lying to the south of it, but those 
vast tenitories stretching to the westward, 
and large enough to make more than six 
States of the size of Pennsylvania? Go- 



11 



vernor Rekder, in a speech at New-York, 
put this grave question in the clearest light. 
He said: "With Kansas a slave State — and you 
will remember that Eansas is 900 miles long 
— I will thank any one to tell me hovv^ he is 
going to save the second, the third, or the 
fourth, each one further and further out of 
reach — each one with more slave States inter- 
vening." If Kansas is lost to Freedom, those 
territories are all lost. We are fighting tlie 
battle once for all. Now or never — now and 
forever. Secure Kansas and all the blessings 
of Freedom — free-labor, free-schools, free- 
speech, a free press, enlightened legislation, 
humane institutions, and that priceless heri- 
tage, the common law, are secured for our 
children. Lose Kansas, and what will be the 
result? Not only will the curse of Slavery 
fasten like a cancer upon that beautiful terri- 
tory — spreading desolation physical and moral 
in its extending course, but the vast emigra- 
tion from abroad that is now poured into our 
midst and overflows westward, stopped sud- 
denly by a line of slave States, will fall back 
upon our free States, giving us a surplus popu- 
lation that we do not want, and which will 
necessarily interfere with the employment and 
the wages of our own citizens. This is a 
practical view of the case which every farmer, 
every mechanic, and every laborer in the 
free States should carefidly consider. 

Conipare again, the relative addition made 
to the commercial prosperity of the Atlantic 
States, and particularly of the city of New 
Yoi'k, by Ohio and Kentucky, and then glan- 
cing forward to the future, if but for fifty or 
an hundred years hence, endeavor to es- 
timate the superior benefits to accrue to the 
Atlantic States, from these western territories 
if organized as free States, over those to accrue 
from their estnblishnieut as slave communities. 
Think, too, of the ditference it will make to 
your children and grandchildren if they wish 
to emigrate to those territories whether they 
are to enter a State on an equal footing with the 
highest citizen, or as one whose condition is re- 
garded a? inferior to that of the Soitthern slave. 

Of its hatred to free society, the democratic 
party at the South do not pretend to make a 
secret. "Free society," says the Muscogee 
(Ala.) Herald, a Buchanan organ — " we sicken 
at the name. What is it, but a conglomera- 
tion of greasy mechanics, filthy operatives, 
small-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theo- 
rists? All the Northern, and especially the 
New-England States, are devoid of society 
fitted for well-bred gentlemen. The prevail- 
ing class one meets with is that of mechanics 
struggling to be genteel, and small farmers 
who do their own drudgery, and yet who are 
hardly fit. for association with a Southern gen- 
tleman's body servant." 

Contrast, gentlemen, with that sentiment, 



now reiterated by the Buchanan organs at the 
South, the sentiment expressed by the leader 
of the Republican party: — "Free labor — the 
natural capital which constitutes the real 
wealth of this great country, and creates that 
intelligent power in the masses alone to be 
relied on as the bulwark of free institutions." 

You have in these rival sentiments the gist 
of the issue now submitted to the American 
people. It is a struggle between Slavery and 
Freedom — between the small oligarchy of 
slave masters with its capital of $2,000,000,000 
invested in human flesii, and the great body 
of free laborers who constitute the bulk of the 
nation for the possession of the unorganized 
territories of the United States. These terri- 
tories exceed in extent by some thirty-three 
thousand square miles all of the United States 
both free and slave States ; and whose area is 
more than twice as large as that of the Free 
States now admitted to the Union.* The 
Slave States have already secured for Slavery 
an area of 857,508 square miles, wliile the 
free States embrace only 012,596 square miles, 
and with this immense preponderance in their 
favor, with millions of acres yet unoccupied, 
they seek to defraud us of Kansas and Ne- 
braska territories, doubly ours by divine right 
and by human compact, and to force Slavery 
into every part of the continent where the 
flag of our Union waves, and Federal authority 
has sway. 

It is idle to talk of pacification or compro- 
mise; it is idle to speak of the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise as a thing to be regret- 
ted, but at the same time to be acquiesced in. 
That repeal has not yet made Kansas a Slave 
State, and if we are true to ouselves it never 
will make Kansas a Slave State. It was but 
the commencement, not the end of the battle. 
Its passage shows, not that we have lost Kan- 
sas, but only that .slaveholders have lost their 
honor. It shows that henceforth against the 
slave power which mocks at faith and tramples 

* The following interesting and important table is taken 
from the New-York Herald : — 

Worthy of Note. — Since the peace of 1783, our territo- 
rial expansion has been uninterruptedly progressing. We 
give a tabular statement showing the date and amount of 
each addition : — 

Square Jfiles. 

1TS3 Area of the tJnion at the Peace S-2o,6S0 

1S03 Purchase of Louisiana 899,579 

1819 Acquisition of Florida CG,250 

1S45 Admission of Texas r>-(8,U00 

1S4G Oregon Treaty 3(«,053 

1S4S Treaty of Guadalope Hidalgo, ) .... 550,-145 
1855 With Mesilla Valley, ) . . . . 

1855 Whole Area of the United States . . . . 2,953,666 

1855 Area of the Slave States 857,503 

" Free " 612,596 

Total Area of the States 1,404,105 

Total Area of the Territories 1,497,561 

The Territories exceed the States in extent, by 33,456 
square miles, and the real issue of the present contest is, 
shall those which remain unsetUed be seized by the South- 
ern slaveholders by force of arms. 



12 



on compacts; which glories in the brutality 
that struck down a defenceless Senator, and 
insulted at one blow the sovereignty of Massa- 
chusetts, and the right of the people, and 
which now holds Kansas by the throat — that 
against this power our only safety is in the 
rescue of the Government from its control, 
and its absolute restriction of Slavery to the 
States where it now exists. "With a foe that 
treaties cannot bind, and that glories alike in 
national perfidy, and social treachery, eternal 
vigilance must be the price of liberty, — vigilance 
to protect the people from the betrayal of 
their dearest rights ; vigilance to shield their re- 
presentatives in Congress, in unsuspecting mo- 
ments, from the stealthy blow of the assassin. 

Without lingering gentlemen upon the pro- 
Slavery despotism that is now enthroned in 
our Federal Government, let me remind you 
that it has grown to its present fearful 
strength not tlirough the actual power of the 
slaveholders, but by our neglect of the warn- 
ing of "Washington, "Let there be no change 
by usurpation. * * Resist with care the 
spirit of innovation upon the principles of the 
Constitution. The spirit of encroachment 
tends to consolidate the power of all depart- 
ments in one, and thus to create a real despo- 
tism." 

And now with the principles of the Consti- 
tution as our guide, and the appeal of Kansas 
in our ear, and the day fast approaching 
when the vote of each of us is to be cast for 
a successor to Mr. Pierce, let us look at the 
candidates and the platforms that are offered 
for our suffrages. 



AND FIRST, THE DEMOOKATIO PLATFORM AND 
MR. BUCHANAN. 

"Were Mr. Buchanan to be judged only by 
his recorded sentiments on the subject of the 
Missouri Compromise, even so recently as 
1848, he might be regarded, perhaps, as a 
fitting candidate, in that regard, for those who 
hold the doctrines of the Republican party ; 
but as he has found it convenient to disclaim 
his identity, and to exchange his principles for 
those now current with his party, his former 
record is only useful as affording whatever 
weight may once have belonged to his charac- 
ter as an independent statesman to the truth 
and soundness of the doctrines to which his 
party and himself are now in opposition. 

In a letter to Mr. Sandford, dated August 21, 
1848, reproduced in the Mobile Advertiser, 
after referring to his advocacy and approval 
of the Missouri Compromise, he said — 

"Having urged the adoption of the Missouri Com- 
promise, the inference is irresistible that Congress^ in 
my opinion, possesses the poiver to legislate upon the sub- 
ject of slavery in the territories. What an absurdity 
would it then be, if whilst asserting the sbvereign 



power in Congress, which power, from its very na- 
ture, must be exclusive, I should in the same breath 
also claim the identical power for the population of a 
territory in an unorganized capacity. * * * I cling 
to the Missouri Compromise with greater tenacity 
than ever." 



But Mr. Buchanan has recently advised his 
countrymen that he " is no longer James Bu- 
chanan." He has been nominated by the 
Democratic Convention at Cincinnati, which 
endorsed with its approval the Administration 
of Franklin Pierce, and embodied the princi- 
ples of that Administration in its platform. 
Mr. Buchanan says, " I have been placed on a 
platform of which I heartily approve, and I 
must square my conduct by that platform, and 
insert no new plank, nor tahe one from ity 

It may be remarked in passing that, apart 
from the principles and policy thus swallowed 
in a lump, this extreme concession to his party, 
this humble merger of individuality, past 
and future, in a platform patched together to 
serve the purposes of a campaign, has not been 
regarded with too much favor, even by liis 
own friends. A certain degree of dignity, of 
self-restraint and of self-respect, is desirable in 
a presidential candidate. His past character 
and services, his antecedents, his principles, his 
opinions, are all viewed with interest by his 
supporters, as reflecting credit upon their 
choice, and it is hardly flattering to their pride 
to see their candidate so extremely " willing" 
as to condescend to such entire abnegation ; to 
forego, from the moment of his nomination, his 
independence of thought, and speech, and 
principle, and, in a word, to merge his indi- 
viduality in the planks, rotten or sound, of a 
temporary platform. It is a characteristic 
that contrasts unfavorably with the manly 
independence and resolution which our people 
admire in their Presidents, whether exhibited 
in the calm defiance of popular tumult shown 
by "Washington, or in the impetuous and 
immovable will of Jackson. Mr. Buciianan's 
letter will not disi)el the impression given of 
his character by Col. Benton, in his Congres- 
sional history, wliere he styles him, " the facile 
Mr. Buchanan ;" nor will it encourage a belief 
on the part of those who hope he may be in- 
clined to deal fairly towards the people of 
Kansas, that he will be permitted to counter- 
act the designs of the men into whose hands 
he has resigned himself, that they will allow 
him to resume the manhood which he has 
voluntarily abandoned, instead of compelling 
him to fulfill his pledge of fealty, and to square 
his conduct by their platform. 

"What that platform is you may learn some- 
what from Mr. President Pierce, who said at 
Washington, " I congratulate you that j-our 
choice has fallen on a man wlio stands on the 
identical platform that I occupy, and that he 
will take the same with the standard lowered 



13 



never aa inch !" Nest hear Arnold Douglas. 
He said in New York, " Buchanan and myself 
have for several years back held the same posi- 
tion on the slavery question from beginning to 
end:' 

The language of the pro-slavery press and 
pro-slavery men at the South, has been : — 
"Mr. Buchanan is as sound on the question as 
"Was Mr. Calhoun, and the Northern Democrats 
are better Southerners to-day than many 
Democrats even at the South." 

I will not multiply authorities to prove Mr. 
Buchanan's readiness to do everything that the 
South may demand. Look at his pledges, look 
at his supporters. xV man is known by his 
friends, and Mr. Buchanan istlie candidate not 
only of Pierce and of Douglas, but of Herbert, 
who shot the Irishman, of Brooks who as- 
saulted Sumner, of Keitt, who proposes, if 
Fremont is elected, to march to Washington 
and rob tlie Treasury. His election would be 
an endorsement of the policy of Pierce; liis 
administration would be a continuance of the 
administration which is so widely repudiated 
and despised for its broken pledges, its faith- 
lessness to freedom, its abject subserviency to 
the slave power, its treachery to the confiding 
settlers in Kansas, its audacious establishment 
of a military despotism, its tolerance, if not 
encouragement, of fraud, outrage, robbery, and 
murder. 

The attempt to discover from platform man- 
ifestoes the actual policy and intent of the 
Democratic party, is not always as easy as you 
might suppose. The Democratic leaders are 
accustomed to act on the motto of Louis XL, 
which has been the guiding rule of a good 
many rulers before and since the times of that 
monarch — that "he who knows not how to 
dissemble, knows not to govern." Arnold 
Douglus, it would seem, in stumping some anti- 
slavery district, represents himself as an anti- 
slavery statesman, but in the present campaign 
the universal agitation of the slavery question 
has led to frequent and frank avowals both at 
the Nortli and the South, by whose aid we 
may read with clearness the platform with 
which Mr. Buclianan is to square his conduct. 
One of the resolutions declares " that by the 
uniform application of the Democratic princi- 
ple to the organization of Territories and the 
admission of new States, with or witliout do- 
mestic slavery as they may elect, the equal 
rights of the States will be preserved in- 
tact." 

We have already seen that they claim the 
right for slavery to overrun all the Territories, 
whether at the North or the South, and by 
their endorsement of Mr. Pierce's administra- 
tion they have approved the forcing of slavery 
upon a Territory by election frauds, by border 
violence, and a corrupt judiciary. Now let us 
see what they mean by " the equality of 



States,^^ which they pledge themselves to ob- 
serve intact. 

The Charleston Mercury thus defines it: 

" If the North really entertains that affectionate 
regard for our property, of which it makes occasion- 
al professions— (/■ it is willing to place our system of 
political economy upon an equality with its oum, and 
allow the conditions of our form of society to be 
pushed to their logical results, then let us import our 
labor from such sources and in such quantities as pleases 
us. Let us HAVE THE Sla\'e Trade. " 

But the mere re-opening of the African 
Slave Trade from Soutliern ports, revolting aa 
is the thought, does not embrace the full idea 
which begins to possess the Slave Power of 
the Equality of the States. It is argued, with 
a certain sort of plausibility, that if the Afri- 
can Trade is again legalized, every port on the 
coast would be in the s; ine degree open to it, 
for the reason that the Oonstitution provides 
that " no preference shall be given, by any 
regulation of commerce or revenue, to the 
ports of one State over another ;" and New 
York and Boston are looked to as the ports 
from which the slavers are to be fitted for the 
African coast, and from which they are to re- 
turn freighted with cargoes of despair. 

As regards the general extension and estab- 
lishment of slavery, the aims of the Buchanan 
party are clear and definite. 

The Richmond Enquirer.^ in an article, " The 
True Issue," says : — 

" The Democrats of the South, in the present can- 
vass, cannot rely on the old grounds of defence and 
excuse for slavery— /or theij seek not merely to retain 
it where it is, but to extend it into regions where it is 
unknown. * * * We propose to introduce into 
new territory human beings whom we assert to be 
unfit for liberty, self-government, and equal associa- 
tion with other men. We must go a step further. 
We must show that African slavery is a moral, reli- 
gious, natural, and — probably in the general — a ne- 
cessary institution of society. This is the only line 
of argument that will enable Southern Democrats to 
maintain the doctrines of State equality, and slavery 
extension." 

Of Kaxsas, the Squatter Sovereign says :— 

"We are determined to repel this Northern inva- 
sion, and make Kansas a Slave State, though our 
rivers should be covered with the blood of their vic- 
tims, and the carcasses of the Abolitionists should 
be so numerous in the territory as to breed disease 
and sickness, we will not be deterred from our pur- 
pose." 

Of Cuba, the design to annex it, is intimated 
in the last resolution of the Cincinnati plat- 
form, where it is declared that " the Demo- 
cratic party will expect of the next administra- 
tion, that every proper effort be made to ensure 
our ascendency in the Gulf of Mexico." And 
Mr. Keitt recently declared, in public, that 
Cuba would be taken, and that " the Demo- 
cratic party would take it." 



14 



" The proper efforts," to this end, wliich are 
expected of Mr. Buchanan, should he be elected 
to the Presidency, were disclosed by him, in 
advance, in the Ostend Manifesto. A price is 
to be offered to Spain for Cuba far beyond its 
present value ; when that has been refused, as 
it has been, and as in all probability it will be 
again, then the question is to be considered — 
" Does Cuba, in the possession of Spain, 
seriously endanger our peace and the existence 
of our cherished Union ? " " Should this 
question be answered in the affirmative, then^ 
hy every law, human and divine, we shall he 
justified in ioresting it from Spain, if we have 
THE power!" 

This is the '"• proper method," approved by 
Mr. Iveitt, and which, in a certain contingency, 
he proposes to apply not only to the gem of 
Spain, but to tlie Treasury of the United 
States. 

" the good old plan, 



That they shall take who have the power, 
And they shall keep who can." 

It was to the credit of Mr. Marcy that fliis 
proposal was repudiated, and its morality 
denied. But, if Mr. Buchanan shall become 
the President of the Republic, and his piratical 
doctrines, avowed at Ostend, become, as Mr. 
Keitt expects, a leading principle of his ad- 
ministration, we niay live to see our once gal- 
lant navy manned with lawless bucaneers, 
setting forth to seize Cuba — " if tliey have the 
power "— ^with the black flag of slavery and 
the death's head and cross-bones of the pirate 
flaunting defiance to the world, above the star- 
spangled banner of our country. 

On the question of disunion, as on that of 
the Missouri Compromise, the fact that the 
candidate of the Democratic party is " no 
longer James Buchanan," is evidemt, when 
we recall his former sentiments on the subject, 
and compare them with that of the platform 
which he has now adopted as "his guide, phi- 
losopher, and ft-iend." "Disunion," said Mr. 
James Buchanan, " is a word which ought not 
to be breathed even in a whisper. The word 
ought to be considered one of direful omen, 
and our children taught tliat it is sacrilege to 
pronounce it." 

Mr. A. G. Brown, one of the committee who 
announced the Cincinnati nomination to Mr. 
Buchanan, in anticipating the possible success 
of the Republican party, said, in a recent 
speech, "If, indeed, it has come to this, that 
the Union is to be used for these accursed pur- 
poses, then, sir, by the God of my fathers, I 
am against the Union ; and, so help me Hea- 
ven, 1 will dedicate the remainder of my life 
to its dissolution." 

Mr. Keitt frankly avows that he " has leen 
a disunionist since he began to think." 



The Richmond Enquirer declares, after enu- 
merating the preparations of Virginia for war ; 

"Virginia makes no boast of these preparations, 
but, sure as the sun shines over her beautiful fields, 
she will treat the election of an abolitionist candidate 
as a breach of the treaty of 1789, and a release of 
evei-y sovereign State in the South from all part and 
lot in its stipulations." 

The Southern Democracy are aware, in the 
language of the Nashville Banner, that if the 
Republican party succeeds, they " can have no 
more fortunate wars — no more judicious pur- 
chases of territory — no more annexing of in- 
dependent States on the southern border." 

They are using every effort to secure Kansas 
and our other territories; with Cuba, Nicara- 
gua, and a part or the whole of Mexico, as 
also Southern California, with the view of 
forming an independent Southern Empire. 
The thought of disunion, to some of them, is 
an ever-present thought. The South Caro- 
linian declares that "the success of Buchanan 
might stave off the dissolution of the Union 
for a time, but that the event is inevitable." 

Another South Carolina paper esultingly 
declares that " the Southern skies are looking 
bright, and all the auguries foretell Southern 
union. Southern independence, and the coming 
greatness of a Southern Republic." 

" Disunion," a word that Mr. Buchanan 
would not have spoken in a whisper, the can- 
didate of tlie Democratic party hears shouted 
exultingly in crowds ; and he has added fuel 
to the treasonable flames that his partisans are 
kindhng in the South, by unjustly intimating 
that tlie people of the North are "intermed- 
dling" with the domestic concerns of the 
South when they resist pro-slavery aggression 
upon rights secured to them by compact. 

I have detained you too long upon the Cin- 
cinnati platform, and we will pass from Mr. 
Buchanan, slavery extension, piracy, and dis- 
union, to 

the ameeican party aotj theie candidate, 
mr. fillmore. 

The American party and its candidate have, 
as I am advised, many supporters in this town, 
and some, ]ierhaps, in this assembly. I will 
assume, as I tliink I have a right to do, that 
being Westchester men, they are opposed to 
treachery and to traitors — that they are in 
favor of Kansas being free, of equal justice to 
the Free States, and of a stop being put to 
those aggressions of the slave power, which, 
in the violation of the Missouri compact, and 
the results that followed it, have so wantonly 
disturbed our national repose and our national 
harmony. Assuming these to be their sFnti-> 
ments and this their object, let me ask Liivra 
whether Mr. Fillmore is the man to accom- 



15 



plish their objects; and, furllier, if Mr. Fillmore 
lias even a probable cliance of being elected ; 
for, as practical men, if be cannot be elected, 
they will hardly desire to throw aw^y their 
votes, and lose their influence in determining 
this tremendous issue. 

The j)latforin of the American (sometimes 
called the Know-iSTothing) party practically 
ignores the one great issue now agitating the 
country ; and, as regards the rights of Kansas 
on the one band, and the schemes for j)ro- 
slavery extension on tlie other, iireserves so 
significant a silence and so positive a neutral- 
ity, that those entertaining the most opposite 
opinions on the-e points are expected to meet 
in liarmony and elect a President upon the 
ground of proposed reforms in the naturaliza- 
tion of aliens, witli neitlier pledges nor princi- 
ples on the one question of the day. The 
Northern members of tlie National Conven- 
tion at which the platform was adopted, offered 
a resolution to the effect ''thac we will nomi- 
nate no candidate for Pre.-ideut or Vice-Presi- 
dent who is not in favor of interdicting the 
introduction of slavery north of 86° 80'." The 
resolution was laid on the table, by a vote of 
yeas 141 to nays 52 ; and Mr. Fillmore was 
nominated on this neutral platform, wbieii 
offers no opposition whatsoever to the exten- 
sion of slavery. Mr. Fillmore liimself stands 
before the country, a perfect cipher on the 
question of Kansa:>, whose wrongs have elicit- 
ed from him neither sympathy nor rebuke. 

Mr._ Fillmore, however, has referred his fel- 
bw-citizens to his past career as the guarantee 
of the course he will pursue if elected to tlie 
Presidency. Taking him at his word, let us 
see how far that career entitles him to the 
confidence of the country.* 

Mr. Fillmore has been in public life since 
1829. He was a member of the Ilou.se of 
Eepresentatives from 1837 to 1843, a period 
of slavery agitation ; and he then voted, with 
persistent firmness, on the side of freedom, 
•with the late venerable Jonx QmscY Adams, 
and that staunch champion of the right — now 
the senior member of the House, whom may 
God long preserve ! — JosnuA E. Giddings. In 
1838, Mr. Fillmore, in response to a committee 
of the Anti-Slavery Society of the County of 
Erie, declared himself "opposed to the annex- 
ation of Texas to the tJnion under any circum- 
stances, so long as slaves are held therein ;" 
and ''in favor of Congress exerting all the 
constitutional power it possesses to abolish the 
internal slave-trade between the States ;" and 
"in favor, also, of immediate legislation for 
the abolition of slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia"— going, you will observe, far beyond 



* The facts here stated are chiefly taken from a speech of 
the Hon. E. B. Morgan, of New-York, in the House of Rep- 
resentatiyes. 



the very restricted anti-slavery platform of the 
Eepublican party. 

During the same year, 1848, Gen. Taylor, a 
Southern man and a slaveholder, was nomina- 
ted for tlje Presidency by the whig party, and 
Mr. Fillmore was nominated on the' same 
ticket for the Vice-Presidency, with the view 
of conciliating the anti-slavery sentiment of 
the North, and reconciling Northern voters to 
tlie support of Gen. Taylor. The ticket was 
successful by a liandson)e majority, receiving 
163 electoral votes. 

The term of General Taylor's Presidency, as 
you remember, was a brief one. The gallant 
old man v.'ho had survived the jjerils and ex- 
poj.ui-e of the camp, was not proof a<];ainst the 
wearing importunities incident to his new po- 
sition. He had escaped the tomaljaivk of the 
Indian on our borders, and the rifles of tlie 
Mexicans at Monterey and Buena Vista, but 
he succumbed before the army of ofiic^seek- 
era that besieged him in the capitol, and the 
unaccustomed cares of the Presidential office. 
But to his eternal credit be it remembered, 
that slaveholder as he was, he never permit- 
ted himself to be the representative of a sec- 
tion, or the tool of a biction, but lived and 
died the faithful executive of the whole peo 
pie. 

Gen. Taylor died on the 9th day of July, 
1850, and Millard Fillmore became acting 
President of the United Slates. 

And now I ask your attention to a remark- 
able development in regard to Mr. Fillmore's 
administration, made sometime since by tije 
Hon. Henry S. Foote, at that time a Senator 
from Mississippi, and prominent leader of the 
Southern wing of the Democratic party. Mr. 
Foote's name, you may perhaps remember, as 
having obtained for a while some little noto- 
riety, from au invitation which he gave on 
the floor of the Senate to the Hon. John P. 
Hale, of New-Hampshire— the true-hearted 
and eloquent representative of the Granite 
State — to visit him in Mississippi, accompa- 
nying the invitation with an assurance that he 
should be hung on the first convenient tree, 
and that Mr. Foote would, with great pleasure, 
assist in the operation. Before Mr. Hale had 
fmind it consistent with his senatorial duties 
to accept this cordial tender of Southern hos- 
pitality, Mr. Foote emigrated to California, 
which he perhajjs regarded as a favorable si)ot 
for the exercise of his benevolence, in exten- 
ding to others the courtesies which Mr. Hale de- 
clined. Before his departure from Wa.shing- 
ton, he addressed a i)arting speech to a meet- 
ing of several hundred persons Convened at 
the National Hotel, including many members 
of Congress, and in the course of it he said 
that he " would tell a little history nevkr be- 
fore DIVULGED," and after recapitulating the 
points in one of his speeches, in the Senate, in 



16 



which he had denounced Gen. Taylor for no- 
minating for office in the Northern States 
gentlemen known or suspected of holding 
free soil sentiments, he proceeded :— 

" I had not long taken my seat before Mr. Badger, 
of North Carolina, one of the purest and most patri- 
otic men that ever occupied a place in the national 
council, came to me and stated that Vice-President 
Fillmore, the then presiding officer of the Senate, 
had requested him to make known to me that he 
perfectly concurred in the views which I had just ex- 
pressed, and that he would be pleased to have an inter- 
view with me on the subject in the official rooms of 
the Capitol, at the hour of nine o'clock the next 
morning. I promised to attend upon him at the time 
and place specified. I did so. 

'"^" Without going into particulars, at present, it is 
sufficient for me to say, that I obtained by the direc- 
tion of Mr. Fillmore from the hands of an accredited 
friend of his, a list of the nominees subject to the 
objection of being agitators on the question of sla- 
very. This whole catalogue of worthies loas disposed 
of in the Senate, in other words, they were sacrificed 
to the peace of the country ; save one or two, whose 
nominations remained to be acted upon on the last 
night of the session of Congress. They were dis- 
posed of by Mr. Fillmore himself, on the same night ; 
for just before the clock struck twelve, this gentle- 
man being then President, sent in a special message, 
withdrawing all the offensive nominations, and substi- 
tuting others in their stead. 

Mr. Foote, in conclusion, pronounced an 
eulogium upon Mr. Fillmore, ''as a true pa- 
triot, who had never^ during his administra- 
tion, nominated a Free-Soiler.''^ 

The disclosure of this remarkable secret his- 
tory not only throws liglit upon the character 
of Mr. Fillmore, and answers the question, 
what pledges for iiis future fideliry to his new 
party and to the whole country, is atforded 
by his past career, but it elucidates another 
question that is occasionally asked, and which 
the future historian will have to answer: 
"Who killed the Whig party?" Mr. Foote 
saw that party in its prosperity, and he saw it 
die. Its requiem has been tolled, and its 
mourners yet go about our streets. Mr. 
Foote has ^^ divulged'''' the secret events that 
preceded its dissolution. He helped Mr. Fill- 
more to give the blow that prostrated it in 
the North, and his friends could testify that 
they caught its blood. The breach of confi' 
dence involved in his disclosure of State se- 
crets, compromising one who had confided in 
him, does not necessarily affect the credibility 
of tbe witness. The disclosures correspond 
with the known facts. They were made in 
the presence of many members of Congress, 
and they have never, that I am aware, been 
contradicted. Mr. Fillmore was undoubtedly 
unfortunate in las choice of a confidant in the 
scheme he adopted for defeating his old asso- 
ciates, and sacrificing the Whigs of the North 
to please the Democrats of the South. He 
should have remembered that there are men, 
as Junius said of Weddeburn, " whom even 



treachery cannot trust." But wheQ yoU re- 
member the utter rout of the Whig party 
in 1852, when Gen. Scott obtained but 42 
electoral votes, and Pierce 25-i, and recall 
its subsequent dissolution almost without a 
struggle, — to the question, who killed the 
Whig party ? what name, I ask you frankly, 
is better entitled to the credit than that of 
Millard Fillmore? 

Recurrmg again to the subject of disunion^ 
let us ask how does Mr. Fillmore stand on this 
great question of constitutional right and duty? 
He stands with Brooks, and Keitt, and 
Buchanan, and Wise, and Forsyth, and Slidell, 
and a host of lesser demagogues, who are 
striving to arouse a sectional disunion spirit, 
declaring that '*if Fremont is elected, the 
Union cannot and ought not to be preserved." 
He openly justifies disunion on the part of the 
North or South, if a constitutional majority of 
the country establishes a policy distasteful to 
the minority of either side. 

1 know that this assertion has been denied — ■ 
that Mr. Botts, of Virginia, who is bearding 
the lion of disunion in its den, recently declared 
that if Mr. Fdlraore had uttered a sentiment 
favoring disunion, he would not vote for him. 
Now look at the record, and see iiow, with an 
inexplicable want of delicacy in view of his 
position as a candidate, he predicts and couu" 
sels resistance if he is defeated, and his oppo- 
nent, Mr. Fremont, is elected. At Albany, on 
the 26th of June, 1856, Mr. Fillmore, in a 
public speech, declared that " We now saw a 
political party presenting candidates elected fot 
the first time from the Free States alone.'''' 
Tills was an extraordinary misstatement, and 
one that Mr. Fillmore had no right to make, 
for he was bound to know that in 1828, the 
candidates of the Wing party were John Quin* 
cy Adams, of Massachusetts, for President, and 
Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, for Vice Presi- 
dent; and having perpetrated this gross iiistor- 
ical blunder, he proceeds to found a false 
assumption on his erroneous premises. 

" Can it be possible that those who are engaged in 
such a measure can have seriously reflected upon the 
consequences which must inevitably follow, in case 
of success? [Cheers.] Can they have the madness 
or the folly to believe that our Southern brethren 
would submit to be governed by such a Chief Magis- 
trate ? [Cheers.] Suppose that the South having a 
majority of the electoral votes, should declare that 
they would only have slaveholders for President and 
Vice-President ; and should elect such by their exclu- 
sive suffrages to rule over us at the North ? do you 
think we would submit to it ? No, not for a moment. 
[Applause.] And do you believe that your Southern 
brethren are less sensitive on this subject than you 
are, or less jealous of their rights ? " 

That the sentiments here expressed were not 
hastily conceived or carelessly uttered is shown 
by the fact that they were deliberately re-de- 
clared at Rochester, and taking the record of 



17 



his own speeches, published by bis friends, it 
is clear that no Southern secessionist has gone 
farther, and scarcely a Northern man has ever 
before gone so far. 

Gentlemen, Mr. Fillmore has, I think, done 
injustice to the People of tiie North, in decl.ir- 
ing that we would not submit in the contin- 
gency lie supposes. He should have remem- 
bered tliat tiie loyalty of the Nortli continued 
unshaken during all his complicity, as Presi- 
dent of the United States an<i Chief of the 
Whig party, witii the slavelioldinir Demncraoy 
of the Southern section. It endured patiently 
when he signed the Fugitive law, so revolting 
to our feelings, and wlien he issued his procla- 
mation and called out the army to assist in 
catching slaves in Boston. 

No! the Nortii recognize no such doctrine; 
they hold to the views expressed by the first 
Chief Justice, in 1801, in a letter to the Free- 
h(dders of New York, in which, referring to 
the recent election for President, in the several 
States, he said: 

'• They place us in a new situation, and render it 
proper for us to consider what our conduct under it 
should be. I take the liberty, therefore, of suggest- 
ing whether the patriotic principles on which we pro- 
fess to act do not call upon us to give (as far as may 
depend upon us) fair and full effect to the known 
sense and intention of a majority of the people in 
every constitutional exercise of their will, and to sup- 
port every administration of the government of the 
conntry which may prove to be intelligent and up- 
right, of whatever party the persons composing it 
may be." 

One other point in regard to Mr. Fillmore 
as a Presidential candidate. Is it not evident 
th:it he cannot be elected? He is being 
deserted both at the North and the South. 
The Hon. Ephraim Marsh, President of the 
National Convention by which lie was nomi- 
nated, has i)ul)lisiied a very able letter, with 
his reasons for declining any longer to supfxirt 
him. Mr. Marsh says that Mr. Fillmore's 
nomination was demanded by the Southern 
members, and that in that deuiand, American- 
ism was i)ut a secondary object to slavery ; 
th it the Nortli having yielded, ihe slave States 
now find that Fillmore is less popular than 
they iiad believed witii the North, and accor- 
dingly tiiey are breaking faith with thjr 
N'irihern associates, and, repiuliating their 
nominee, are g'>ing over to Bucha>ian. Mr. 
Marsh sensibly asks whether the North is to 
adhere to a iu)mination made at the demand 
of the South, reluctauily acquiesced in by the 
North, and now repudiated by tiie South, 
and lie answers as I think j-ou will answer — 
no. Senator Geyer, ()f Missouri, who has gone 
over to Buchanan, declares that lie is "satis- 
fied that the contest is between Mi-. Buchanan 
aJid Mr. Fremont ; that Mr. Fillmore cannot 
tM)ssibly obtaiu more than five Slates; and it 
2 



is by no means certain that he can carry a 
single one." 

Senator Brown, of Mis.«issippi, savs that 
there is scarcely a struggle between Fillmore 
and Buchanan. "Mr. Fillmore has not the 
ghost of a chance. * * * If Buchanan is not 
elected, Fremont will be." 

A Charleston pa[)er, taking the same view 
of the matter, says that Mr. Fillmore is fight- 
ing his own and Buchanan's battle; and Gov- 
ernor Floyd's recent declaration in New York, 
that there were bonds of union between the 
American and Democratic parties, accurds 
with sundry other indications that the Fill- 
more ticket is kept in tlie field mainly to dis- 
tract tlie Republican vote, and to insure the 
success of the slavery candidate. 

To vote for Fillmore, then, is to vote for a 
Southern candidate, whom the South reject — 
who does not represent the views and feelings 
of the North, wlii'Se election is all but hope- 
less, and every vote for whom, by a voter op- 
posed to the extension of slavery and the 
establishment of piracy, is, in reality, a vote 
for Buchanan — a vote for the Cincinnati plat- 
form and for ttie candidate of the Romish 
church. To every member of the American 
party, who, under this state of things, intends 
to vote for Mr. Fillmore, tnay be appropriately 
addres-ed, with slight alteration, the words of 
Pope Paul to the Duke of Guise when leaving 
Italy: — '-Go, then, and take with you the 
satisfaction of having done little for your party, 
less for your country, and nothing for your 
own honor." 

There have been recent rumors of a plan 
among the Fillmore and Buchanan leaders to 
trade otf the votes of the respective parties in 
support of a Union ticket, to compass the 
defeat of Fi'emont — so that Democrats, fo- 
reigners, and Rnmauists, shall be made to 
elect candidates pledged to Know Nothingisni 
and Protestantism; and those who Indd to the 
principles of tiie American party shall assist to 
elect the opponents of their views, and the 
reviiers of tiieir principles and motives. I 
think that those wlio suppose the people can 
be bought and sold at the pleasure of their 
leader-, will soon find their mistake. Burke, 
in an extraordinary figure, that a lesser orator 
would not have dared to use, described the 
ill-assorted members of Lord Chatham's cabi- 
net as '• pig'.nng toiretlier in the same truckle- 
bed." And hei'e it is proposed to drive tlie 
Fillmoreites ami Buccaneers, North and South, 
info one pen, and make them vote as they are 
bidden. The politicians who have suggested 
I ills ingenious device, may have found it aa 
easv tiling lo buy over a convention, or to 
coiruiit a Congress, but they may learn, as 
Lord North and tiie Tories learnt, before them, 
that it is alike useless and dangerous to trifle 



18 



with the honesty of the masses, or to resist 
the will of an united people. 

THE EEPtJBLIOAN PARTY AND ITS LEADER. 

It is pleasant, gentlemen, to turn from these 
schemes for slavery extension, tu glance at the 
Kepnblican party, that has sprung into exist- 
ence, like the armed Minerva, from the brain 
of Jove — beautiful in its proportions, and ter- 
rible in its strength — with the principles of 
Washington and the Fathers for its chart, and 
" tlie pathfinder of empire" to bear aloft its 
standard. 

The platform of the Republicans, as adopted 
at Philadelphia on the 18th of June, 1856, is 
at once so simple and comprehensive as to 
admit all Americans, who are in favor of re- 
storing the Government to the principles of 
"Wasliington, and putting a final stop to the ex- 
tension of slavery, witlioiit compromising their 
individual preferences, on the other political 
questions which naturally exist in our govern- 
ment, but which are, for the time, oversha- 
dovved by this paramount issue. 

Tlie Republican party holds that an adher- 
ence to the princi[)les of the Fathers, and tlie 
Declaration of Independence — which the sham 
democracy of the day ridicules as a tissue of 
glittering sounding eeneraliiies — is essential to 
the preservation of our Republican institu- 
tions, of the Federal Constitution, of the riglits 
of the people, and the union of the States. It 
denies tlie authority of Congress, or of any 
territorial leyislature, or of any association of 
individuals, to establish slavery in the terri- 
tories, and claims that it is the right and the 
duty of Congress to proliibit, in the territories, 
those twin relics of barbarism — slavery and 
polygamy. It arraigns the Pierce administra- 
tion before the country and the world for the 
crimes it has instigated and per()etrated against 
Kansas. It declares that Kansas should be 
admitted as a free State, with its present Free 
Stale Constitution ; and, having thus declared 
its j.olicy at home, it denounces the hitrhway- 
man's plea, that might n)akes right, as declared 
in the Ostend circular, as unworthy of Ameri- 
can diplomacy. 

Is tiiere a single point in that platform to 
whicli you cannot heartily subscribe? Do 
you find there anything that conflicts with the 
rights of tlie South, with the duties of the 
North, or with the proper harmony of the 
Union ? For myself, I believe that the 
triumph of tiiese principles — making it a fixed 
fact for all coming time, that slavery shall not 
be extended beyond its present limits — can 
alone quiet tlie country, and secure the stabil- 
ity and repose of the Republic. If the strug- 
gle is not now ended, it will undoubtedly con- 
tinue. The election of Buchanan, and the 



triumph of slavery, would be not a settlement, 
but only a postponement of the question. 

Such are the principles of the Republicans, 
which they have not invented in Cincinnati, nor 
imported from Ostend, but which they find in 
the writings of the Fathers of the Republic, 
and in the Constitution, that they ordained 
for the establishment of liberty and justice. 
Such is the platform — now for the candidate. 

With the history of Fremont, every reading 
American is familiar. Before he was thirty 
years old, he had explored the basin of the 
upper Mississippi, and the passes of the Rocky 
Mountains, from the frontier of Missouri to 
the shores of the Pacific. He had fixed the 
locality and character of the pass through 
which thousands are pressing to California; 
had defined the geography and geology of the 
country, and designated the points from which 
the flag of the Union now waves from a chain 
of fortresses in the wilderness. His report, 
printed by the Senate, was translated into for- 
eign languages, and his name was enrolled by 
the savans of Europe am(*ng the great geogra- 
phers of the world. 

Before the age of thirty -five, he had become, 
in the language of Mr. Buchanan, "'the Con- 
queror of California," and had assisted to erect 
that territory into a Free State. At thirty- 
seven, he was elected, by its legislature, to the 
Senate of the United States, where he faith- 
fully maintained lier rights and advanced her 
interests;* and now, at the age of forty-three, 
he is the candidate, less of a convention than 
of the people — tlie chosen candidate of free- 
dom, for the highest office in the people's gift. 

Since his nominaiion, slander has been busy 
with his name, and invention has been tor- 
tured to create distrust in his integrity. But 
go back a little, to a time when he stood in 
the way of no political aspirants ; search the 
records of Congress, and you will find the 
highest testimony to the ability, prudence, and 
integrity of Fremont, from many of those who 
are now in the ratiks of his opponents. Not 
inly from Mr. Buchanan, and from Calhoun, 
but from Badger, of North Carolina, Clay- 
ton, of Delaware, Mason, of Virginia, Crit- 
tenden, of Kentucky, Cass, of Michigan, But- 
ler, of South Carolina, Dix, of New-York, 
Atchison, of Missouri, Rusk, Bagby, and 
Benton. 

Lot me quote to you the opinion entertained 
of Fremont by one of the oldest statesmen 



* The California Chronicle says that " durinj; Fremont's 
brief service in the U. S. Senate, he introductd and advo» 
cated 17 i>ost-routes, and 18 nther bills for the benefit of 
California ; a bill for the Pacific wagon-road, and opposed 
proposition.s to tax mining claims: advocated free labor; 
and if he had cuntinued at his post, California would this 
day be further advanced in all the essentials of State pros- 
perity, than twenty years of Gwin and Weller, with all their 
political machinery, could bring about." 



19 



of the country, the Honorable and venerable 
JosiAH QuixcY, who, from liis retirement, ad- 
dresses words ("f counsel to liis fellow-conntry- 
men : "I believe iiim," says Mr. Qiiincy, "to 
be a m:in as nuich marked out by Providence 
for the present exigency of our nation, as 
Waslnngton was for that of our American 
Revolution. He comes from whence great. 
men usually come, from the nuiss of the i)eo- 
ple — nursed in difficulties, practiced in sur- 
mounting them; wise in counsel, full of re- 
source, self-])o-;sessed in dang t ; fearless, and 
foremost in every useful enterprise; unexcep- 
tionable in murals, witii nn intellect elevated 
by nature and cultivated in laborious fields of 
duty — I trnst he is destined to save tiiis Union 
from dissolution, to restore the Constitution 
to its original purity, and to relieve that in- 
strument wldch Washington designed for the 
preservation and enlargement ot freedom, tnun 
being any longer perverted to the multiplica- 
tion of Slave States and the extension of 
slavery." 

Such has been the general conviction of his 
merits and his popularity throiigiiout the 
country, that there are reasons fur supposing 
that if it had not heen for his persistent oppo- 
Fiiion to the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise, he might have been selecte<l by Gover- 
nor Fl'iyd and his friends, as the Presidential 
candidate of the Democratic party. 

It is better as it is. He occupies his true 
position at the iiead of the par'y of constitu- 
tional freednm, resisting tlie violation of com- 
pacts, iind the extension of slavery. 

The hour for a change lias come, and with 
the liour appears the man. The country de- 
mands a change not only of policy but of 
rulers. 

We want no longer men who have made 
politics a trade — who have grown gray in 
party traces — who in the pursuit of office 
have veered from Federalism to Democracy, 
from Democracy to Slavery Mud Buccaneering, 
and who now merge principles and ideality in 
tlie Cincinnati Platform; — nor do we want 
one who has plunged from abolitioniMU into 
slave-catching, and from slave-catching by a 
natural transition, I cannot call it a descent, 
into sectionalism, and disunionism — viewing 
tlie while wiih cold inditference the sacri- 
fice of freedom and the wrongs of Kansas. 
Our people demand one whose heart beats 
responsive to their own — who unites the gen- 
erous enthusiasm of youth, with the matured 
vigor and wisdom of maidiood. 

They need one who ))as given a guarantee 
in the |iast for his career in the future — one 
whose identity and individuality is stamped 
upon his life — who fears not to avow in out- 
bpoken words, his manly principles, and who 
would scorn to become the padlocked plank 
of a platform, or the pliant puppet of a parly. 



The day approaches when yon are to do 
your part towards determining the questioa 
of Amekioa fhee, or America slave. One 
of the famous laws promulgated by Solon for 
the governance of the Athenians, declared 
dishonored and disfranclnsed every citizen 
who in a civil sedition stood aloof and took 
part witli neither side. Here, gentlemen, the 
very government is in rebellion against the 
Constitution and the people, and Kansas looks 
to you to free her from its tyraimic grasp. 
Remember the dignity of your position — pon- 
der the importance of your vote. Upon the 
I ballots cast in your quiet village may depend 
' the future of the Republic — the destiny of the 
I continent. 

j The issue is the broad one of Freedom and 
Slavery. All other issues are for the time 
I absorbed in this, and personal animosities 
' and prejudices should disappear before a com- 
mon danger, as in the early days of the Re- 
public. Shall our constitutional liberties be pre- 
I served ? Shall the mission of the country be ac- 
complished ? Shall pea<"e and freedom shower 
I tlieir blessimrs over our Western territories ? 
or shall club-law rule at Washington ? Shall 
j honorable murderers stalk unpunished in the 
[capital? Shall a military despotism trample 
the life-blood from our territories, and an ar- 
rogant oligarchy of slave masters rule as with 
the plantation-whip, twenty millions of Amer- 
ican citizens? 

That is the issue. It concerns not otdy the 
North, but the South, where an immense ma- 
jority of non-slaveholders are now shorn of 
their rights by the exacting influence of slavery. 
Ours is no sectional party. It is bounded 
by no geographic lines. We believe with 
Buike, that virtue <loes not depetid on climate 
or degrees. We fight not against a section, 
l)ut a class; not against a peojde, but a system. 
Our leader is one whom the Soutii has de- 
lighted to h(mor, and it should not be forgotten 
riiat to South Carolina, that gave birth to a, 
Brooks, whom the House of Representatives 
spurned as the assassin-like assailant of Charles 
Sumner — to the same South Carolina belongs 
the credit of having reared Fkemoxt, whom, by 
God's blessing, we hope to install as the constitu- 
tional defender of the liberties of the country. 
Our opponents would liave us believe that, 
instead of "Fremont and victory," we are on 
tiie verge of a defeat. VVtiether victory or 
defuat await us, duty is ours, conse(piences are 
God's; and I have long regarded the battle 
for free<lom in America as one that we are to 
wage steadfastly, if not hopefully, while life 
la^ts, preserving untarnished the weapons of 
our fathers, and bequeathing therri, unrusted, 
to our sons. Stand by the principles of th© 
Declaration of Iinlependence, whose irresist- 
ible point and divine temper converted rebeW 
lion into I'evolutiou — contend, as your fathers 



20 



contended for " the eights of human na- 
ture." 

Notliing, it is said, can be more uncer- 
tain than the near future of American poli- 
tics. Men's judgments in sucli ca~es, are natu- 
rally biased by t'leir wislie*, and intinenced, 
perhaps, Tnore or less, by the predominancy 
of one parry or anotiier in their own neigh- 
borhood. The New Orleans Delta^ reviewing 
from that far corner the whole country, de- 
clares tliat parry leaders, engaged wiih the 
loaves and fi>hes, liave culpably kept tliem in 
ignorance of tlie real strengrh of rhe Republi- 
can party, wliich, it says, tijreatens to swallow 
up every otiier in the North as the rod of 
Moses swallowed up those of the Egyptians. 
It admits that the Republican party has in- 
creased, is increasing, and is not likely to be 
diminislied, a fact, that, it remarks has just 
spoken with 8,000 voices in Iowa. 15,000 in 
Vermont, and 20,000 in Maine, with Bl lif, a 
Freinonter, from a Slave S;ate, and that these, 
as signs of the times, po.ssess the utmost signi- 
ficMnce. It reminds its readers that like causes 
produce like etfects, and it anticipates a similar 
result in all of the Free States. 

Tiiere are two disturbing causes that may 
prevent this result: one, the deception that 
lias been practi-ed by the Democratic leaders 
in some of the States in pretending to be op 
posed to tlie exten&ion of slavery, and the 
belief which they have been siicees-fiil in pro- 
pagating, that the rights involved in the Mis- 
souri Compromise have been delinitely dis|)o- 
sed ot by its repeal, whereas it is the very 
question, in an intensified form, that is now di- 
rectly i)Ut hy rhe people of Kansas to the peo- 
ple of the United States. 

It is no longer, shall slavery be permitted to 
pass tlie line of 30^ 30' quietly and under the 
sanction of" popular sovereignty ?"' bat, shall it 
be permitted to pass that line by the aid of 
fraudulent elections, a lawless executive and 
a corru|jt judiciary, by the connivance of tlie 
Federal Government and the power of the 
Federal arm, trampling upon the Cuisiitntion 
of the United States, the sovereignty of Kan- 
sa.s, and the rights and liberties i>t its people ? 

The blood already spilt in consequeiKie of 
the repeal of the Missouri compact, drips from 
the hands of every man who aided that breach 
of faith. But be who now votes for either 



Buchanan, who endorses, or for Fillmore, who 
by his silence approves, the encroachment of 
slavery upon Kansas, not only incurs, with the 
original repealer of the compact, the ancient ' 
curse, •' Cursed be he that removeth his veigh- 
bor's landmark. And all the people shall say^ 
AMEN"," but he assumes the responsibility of 
all the blood that is destined to water the 
plains of Kansas, if the slave power is now 
supported in ts attempt to force slavery upon 
that consecrated soil. 

The other disturbing cause is the power 
of money in the hands of men whose prin- 
ciples allow them to approve the election 
frauds perpetrated in Kansas, and who may 
he ready to rejieat the experiment nearer 
home. With a certain class of politicians, 
the importation of illcL'al votes and other 
frauds upon the purity of elections, seem to be 
regarded as venial offences, if not acriially en- 
titling them to the gratitude of their party, 
when, in truth, no act of treason can strike 
more directly at the sovei'eignty of the people, 
and the stahility of the Republic. 

Looking at our future prospects, it is to be 
remembered that the people of the slave States 
also are awakening to a knowledge of their 
strength ami a remembrance of their right 
and truest interest. Not only Missouri, but 
Virginia too, are jjreparing to throw off the in- 
solent domination of the slave power, and the 
manly spiiit shown by Prof. Hedrick, of South 
C.irol'ina, in avowing his principles, and prefer- 
ence for Fremont, is an indication tfiat theReign 
of Terror, which banishes booksellers, silences 
presses, and gaus all expression of anti-slavery 
sentiment, will soiui suffer interruption. 

Tyranny and treachery, though they may 
prosper for awhile, irresistibly sow the seeds 
of their own destruction, and if we are but true 
to ourselves, true to the principles of our 
fathers, true to the historic associations that 
cluster about our soil, lot us trust that we shall 
soon restore freedom to Kansas and quiet to 
the Union, and let us resolve and re-resolve 
never to falter in our course until we have 
placed the Feder.d Government on the side 
of Freedom, and re-inaugnrated that olden 
p.ilic> of Wa-hington and Jefferson, by which 
they ordained that throughout the vvide extent 
of our Western Territories "the sun shouldnot 
rise upon a master, nor set upon a slave." 



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